Tonight I sat alone at a lake staring at the calm water that barely held any ripples. I went there to think. This is a heavy time and a chaotic time. So I went in search of peace, which I often find at the water.
I’ve been thinking a lot about an article I read for a philosophy class last spring. It was a letter Martin Luther King Jr wrote from Birmingham Jail written in 1963. He wrote how black people are constantly told to wait until the time is right. Wait for justice. Wait to be treated as equal. Wait for rights. And, as we have seen to be true, MLK writes this “waiting” means never.
“Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, ‘Wait.’ But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental sky, and see her beginnning to distort her personality by developing an unconcious bitterness toward white people…[continued]…. then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.” –MLK Jr.
MLK addressed this nearly 60 years ago, and yet here we are today. America no better than it was in 1963. You can’t convince me America has changed — it is only that the methods have slightly evolved. Black people today are still being told to wait. Or worse yet: they are told that the racism they have experienced “isn’t real” or they are “being too sensitive”, and therefore completly disregarding there is any problem at all.
How is it that, as a country, we have told a group of people they must wait for the safety to go on a run or to go to the store without being murdered — by those who are to protect them — simply because of the color of their skin?
How is it that we have rejected a group of people the right to drive a car without the fearing for their life when they get pulled over by the cops — because of the color of their skin?
How is it that we decide their lives aren’t worth enough for us to open our mouths in protest when they are murdered in cold blood — because of the color of their skin?
How is it that we have brought it upon ourselves to decide how black people should respond and react to their oppression and injustice — without having the slightest inkling of what it is like to live in America as a black person?
What a sickening thing we, as a country, have done.
57 years later and this letter is still as valid as ever. 57 years later and white people are still determining the worth of a life by skin color. 57 years later and black people can’t even leave their homes without knowing if they’re safe. Scratch that. Black people aren’t safe in their homes either. Botham Jean was murdered in his own home last year by a Dallas police officer who entered the wrong apartment and claims she mistook him for an intruder. 57 years later and black people are still perceived as a threat before they are seen as a person.
George Floyd is the latest black man to be murdered by a police officer. Murdered by the officer’s knee pressing into his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds while George Floyd pleaded for his life and told the officer he could not breathe. “I can’t breathe.”
And he isn’t alone. Black people in America are suffocated everyday. Suffocated when a white woman clutches her purse as a black woman walks by. Suffocated by racist “jokes”. Suffocated by America’s stereotypes. Suffocated by less opportunity. And how many of us are standing by breathing fresh air and living our lives as we drown out their screams for air? I refuse to be one of them.
Martin Luther King Jr also addresses this in his letter. He addresses the white people who don’t stand up for what’s right simply out of discomfort or inconvience. I have to say, I think it is extremely disheartening that so much of the church falls into what MLK calls “the white moderate”. Because this is the opposite of what God has called the church to be in this world. And if we can’t display love to others and stand up for when something so wrong and so evil is happening in our world, then what does the gospel really mean to you?
A few quotes from MLK’s letter below:
“First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I’ve almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Klu Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.”
“Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.”
“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.”
57 years later and here we still are. Let’s change that. Our generation. Change needs to happen NOW.
This matters. And it matters more than we can possibly even know.
With love and grace,
Olivia Mars
LiveGrace 